Who let the dogs out!?

The past few weeks have been crazy. Kendra quitting, leaving, Dad coming, and then Friday. Usually I have Friday off, but my supervisor called and asked if I could sub that day. I wanted to say no but I went because he said it was an emergency and, really, if I needed a sub I would want people to take the time for me (like they have done before).

Turns out the emergency was that two of the teachers skipped out and left the country. Yep. They ditched without a word to our boss. The only reason our boss knew they weren't coming was that another teacher had gotten a text from one of them saying they were leaving the country and not coming back. The best answer they got out of them was that they were scared of the radiation coming from Japan.

That's a dumb reason. First of all: it's EVERYWHERE, and second, it's not even in KOREA that much! Mostly in the other direction! Something else was up.

Whatever the reason, my schedule is all screwed up now and I have some new classes and another of my own classes given to another teacher. Sad day. Oh well.

DRAMA!

In other, GOOD news...

Have I told you about dog cafes? Well, Tara and I went to a dog cafe this weekend and it was awesome. It was a great adventure. Lots of fun. We even made two new friends! Man, I love Tara.

Our adventure starts coming out of the Hongik University Station, exit 5, according to the directions I found online. Our instructions said to turn LEFT. Well, there was a wall there. And a wall in front of us. And behind us. Ok. Let's go down... THIS ALLEY to the main road! Yay! We thought maybe it would become clear out on the main road. But no. It didn't.

Tara is Ms. Fearless. I would have gone into a store and asked for directions. Not this lady. She just asked random people if they spoke English until we found someone who could give us directions. We finally found these two girls who spoke pretty good English and one of them used her iPhone to find directions. Cool!

We thought they would just point in the general direction, but they said they were going in that direction so they would take us. Turns out we were REALLY far from where we wanted to be and these two girls walked us all the way there! We went through a million little roads and alleys to get there and it quickly became clear that this was not "in the same direction" as they were going.

I felt bad that we had taken up so much their time so I asked if there was anything we could do for them, buy them a coffee or dinner or something and you know what they asked? They asked if we could be friends! How CUTE is that! Apparently one of the girls went to Australia for a while and was so impressed by how nice people were to her that she decided that when she came back to Korea she wanted to make friends with a foreigner. So we traded phone numbers and names (they were "Amy" and "Rachel") and promised to meet up some time. Probably not this weekend but maybe the weekend after Easter we'll get together. Tara says we should go clubbing. So maybe I'll hit the Itaewon dancing scene. Who knows.

The whole POINT of this endeavor, though, was to get to the Bau House: a dog cafe. What is a dog cafe, you might ask. No, not where you eat dogs. It's where you go to SEE dogs. They are everywhere! All you have to do is buy a drink (and buy some treats, too, for the dogs) and you get to stay and play with all the puppies!!

We got shakes and a bag of doggy treats. Yay!



We were seated at a table with this beast underneath. He just slept there the whole time. GIANT husky!



The dogs just hop up next to, jump on the tables, walk along the back of chairs... this was a cute little guy that joined us for a while. They are really just there for the treats. Most of them leave if they figure out you aren't going to give them another treat.



This little guy just jumped up on my lap and sat next to me for a while. The CUTENESS!!



This little lady sad behind Tara's head the whole time. She didn't like our treats, but she tolerated being scratched.



I liked this. The dogs were all over these guys. What you DIDN'T see was the dog that had been standing on the table just moments before while I turned on my camera.



This looks like the dog from Lady and the Tramp who sings that "He's a Tramp" song. She was super soft.



Tara loved the two pretty dalmatians.



WEENIE DOG!!!



This chubby guy followed us around a whole lot. He just had the saddest eyes!! How could you say no to that? This guy was a slobber monster, though. I hate when dogs put their heads on your knee and leave a drool spot. Eew.



After playing with all the slobbery dogs, we decided to head out to find something to eat. More specifically, we went in search of Dos Tacos. Along the way we found many things

A chicken for Mom. Sorry, Mom. You can't really stop me from adding to your chicken collection because I'M IN KOREA!! Muahahahahaha!!



I'm pretty sure this wasn't intentional, but it was pretty funny. Boobi Boobi Cafe!



There are apparently 13 "Ho Bars" in the area. This was for the Luxury Hos.



We never found Dos Tacos so we decided to just find a random restaurant. One guy pointed at this place and said it had good food. Come to find out he was a waiter there so he is kind of biased, and also very, very wrong.

This is Cheers.

Don't go here for food. You shall be disappointed.



We checked out the menu and it looked... iffy. We were unsure of some things and others just looked gross. We contemplated just leaving but decided to stick it out.



Tara got a funky looking salad that they guy said would have balsamic on it but ended up having honey mustard which she hates. I thought I would be safe with nachos (I reeeaaally wanted Mexican food...) and I guess it was "safe" just not good. The cheese was all cold and while it would have been fine for a home thing, not what I wanted after not eating all day. Oh well.



We warned some people going up there that it wasn't that good but they wouldn't listen. Oh well. It ended up being a really fun night.

Next week is Easter. What should I do to celebrate? All the eggs are brown, here... any ideas how to decorate brown eggs?

Daddy's second trip to Korea!!

Daddy came to visit AGAIN!! It was awesome. We did a lot of stuff even though we were both really tired. Dad was tired from all his traveling and I was tired from my last two crazy weekends touring with Kendra. But, boy, did we have fun!

The first thing we did was go to Dr. Fish! YEAH!! Now, I'm usually very good about remembering my camera... but both Dad and I forgot our cameras!! D: We are horrible people. We did stop at every convenience store on the way to try and find a disposable camera which we finally found, but I don't know when/if ever those pictures will make it to this blog. Oh well.

Anyways. Dad had fun and we plan to go back with Jesi in July. HECK YES! We'll remember to take our cameras then. And I will get video of us all together. :)

We got up on Sunday and headed out towards Insadong to see the Jongmyo Shrine. It was pretty! We had to take the English tour since they don't just let people walk around there (except on Saturday...). Our guide at the shrine was much better than the guide Kendra and I had at the museum on Friday.



I also answered one of her questions right and she was very impressed. She asked what the little stone things looked like and people said things like sheep, but I got it right with CLOUDS.

Yeah... I didn't tell her it looked like the little cloud things I've seen on anime...



We got to take a look down this big long hallway where they have the big ancestor ceremony in May. We weren't allowed to walk there, but we could climb up on the steps and peek in. It was really cool.



Dad, of course, was super serious about all this.



Pretty picture of one of the gates...



After the shrine, we headed to Myung Dong for some of my favorite chicken bulgogi. On the way we found a chicken for Mom!!



And SNOOPY! Ah... hi, Snoopy! :)



Once we were filled with lots of chicken and vegetables, we went to Namdaemun. It was a little crowded, but nothing like how I've seen it before. Still, there were a lot of people.



And they were cooking those stinky bug things. Ugh. I HATE the smell of these things. Yuck! They smell like someone is steaming sweat socks. Yuck!



We were getting tired (tired, tired, tired) so we decided to skip the museum and head home to see a movie. There wasn't really anything playing at the theater that looked good besides the King's Speech so we went to a DVD room to watch a movie. I was going to try and get Dad to see Ahjushi (the movie that's like Taken but way more violent), but we ended up seeing Legion. That was a freaky movie. Just... freaky.

I love DVD rooms. They are really nice. About the same price as a theater (a little less) but you get your own room and you don't have to worry about bothering people if you want to talk. Plus: AWESOMELY HUGE SEATING!!



Then it was bed time. SLEEP.

The next morning we headed to Namdaemun again for a while before I had to go to work. Work was tough that day because I wanted to be out exploring with my daddy.

While I was at work, Dad went and walked around my neighborhood. I think he walked around E-Mart and just up and down the roads. Here are some of the pictures he took on his little adventure that day.

Lunch: he totally got kimbob! I LOVE kimbop!



We skyped with Mom that day, too. I love skype. P.S. Let me know if you want to skype me! I'll let you know my skype address.



And ANOTHER chicken for Mom! This time from the chicken restaurant by my apartment. I'm not that partial to fried chicken, so I've never gone here before. I've heard it's good, though.



I want to go to this place sometime. They sell steamed buns. But I don't know what's in them or how to order them. Go inside? Yell at the guy outside? I don't know. Sometime soon. That's one thing I'm a weeny on: ordering food. :/



Dad met me after work on the corner and we went and got some of the pizza I always talk about. Dad agrees: Korean pizza rocks. We got Hot Chicken and Sweet Potato. Pizza and Iron Man 2 made for an awesome Daddy daughter night.

Dad left early Tuesday morning which was sad, but it was still a really fun visit. Plus, I get to see Dad AND Jesi in July when we go to Vietnam! Yay!

Last weekend with Kendra :(

Like I said in my last post, Kendra had to leave. Of course, this meant that we had to go do a bunch of touristy stuff. We had been waiting until the weather was nice because winter was just to cold to go and wander around Seoul. With Kendra leaving so soon, we just didn't have that luxury.

So on Thursday April 7, we hit the town. Of course, it decided to rain ALL DAY. Not big rain, just mist really. Light enough that it felt okay to forgo an umbrella, but enough that after walking around for an hour you realize your hair is totally soaked and only looks worse as it dries. NICE!

Our first stop of the day was Insadong to try and find some souvenirs for Kendra and her family. We walked around a little bit and found a few things for her before we decided to find some food.

Kendra wanted to do barbecue before she left so we set out to find what Sister Christiansen calls a "leaf and beef." We had almost given up hope when a lady passed us a flier saying, "Authentic Korean barbecue!" I think we scared her because we were like, "YES! We were looking for one! Please! Show us!!"

They didn't have what we usually get at the place closest to us, but this one was even BETTER. We got marinated sliced beef with veggies. Mmmm... bulgogi...



Per usual, there were the many sides and I have to admit I didn't try the salads. Sorry. I didn't feel like eating the salad things that always have the same strange sauces on them. Nope. Didn't want it.



I did take a big bite of the kimchi, though. *shudder* I don't know if I will ever get used to that stuff. I honestly don't see the appeal. It's not so much the spicy. It's just STRONG as all get out! You can taste it with your NOSE!! Does no one GET THAT!!?

Anyways. Kendra ate some kimchi, too. It was spicier than usual, which led to large bites of rice.



After that, we took the subway out to Dondaemun to check out Dongdaemun Market which is supposed to be a pretty happening place. We followed the little maps and walked a ways. Then we stepped into a bank, got some money, and walked some more. Stopped at another map, had a nosey ahjumma give us directions, walked some more... We started resorting to walking through random alleys hoping to find SOMETHING!

Finally, we figured out that we had been walking through it the whole time, just no one was there that day.



What a bunch of wimps. A little rain and everything closes down. Psh.

We did, however, pass by the pet area, I guess. There were kittens, hedgehogs, bunnies, birds, fish, and CHICKENS!!

This one's for Mom.



We finally found one alley that was promising. I think this was the toy and stationary alley that we had seen on the map because that is what was there. I was on the look out for my toast pillow, but, alas, though we found many stuffed animals, we never did find any toast. *sad*



I did find the cutest pencil sharpener/eraser holder EVER though.



That's right. The bun clips off so you can store your fries and drink erasers in with the lettuce and meat. Also, it's from HATDONALDS. I love fake brand names. :)



We finally got tired and headed into the mall to watch Kendra's last movie with Korean subtitles. I was surprised at how good Sucker Punched was. I thought it was just going to be a bunch of skanky girls fighting dragons, but it turned out to have a bit more substance than that. Cool.

After a quick trip to Itaewon for a futile attempt to buy fangirl stuff for Kendra (everything was closed by the time we got there) and dinner at Outback, we agreed to meet up at Namdaemun the next morning before her flight for a few last minute things.

We were tired.



After Namdaemun, we went in search of the Korean War Memorial which we never found. Oh well. We did make it in time to the Korean National Museum which was really cool. There was a great view of the city line. Lovely.



We took some stupid pictures in front of the building. Wee!



We were allowed to take pictures in the museum exhibits but our tour guide was... strange so the the opportunity never really presented itself to take pictures. So, instead, here is a lovely picture of the museum gift store.



We decided to take the English tour because we figured they would hit all the big hot spots in the museum that Kendra should see. No. No, he really didn't. Don't take the tour. Just go in and walk around. We were told it would be an hour long tour, but I don't think anyone told our guide that. He spent the first half hour telling us the history of Korea. In front of the exhibits. Not IN the exhibits where we could look at stuff while he talked. AWAY from them. Then he would lecture us about really strange things about how we should feel looking at the eyes of the Buddha, making us walk slowly towards the statue while looking at the eyes...

Not worth it.

I finally looked meaningfully at my watch and he asked if we had to be somewhere and I said that, yeah, we were told the tour was only an hour and Kendra had to leave for the airport. He got really flustered and then just fast walked us through the rest of the exhibits.

The only redeeming part of the tour was that there were only three of us: Kendra, me, and a girl from Spain. I totally got to practice my Spanish! IN KOREA!! It was so much fun. She probably thought I was an idiot, but I had fun.

We quickly left the museum and went on base with Sister Christiansen who had kindly let Kendra spend the week with her and her awesomely adorable (if freakishly TALL) family. Then it was hugs and goodbyes and Kendra was off to the airport. *sigh* Sadness. She's back in Salt Lake, now, with her sister. :(

I headed home to do some stuff to get ready for my daddy to visit the next day! Yay! I stopped and got my bangs trimmed (very badly... I was/am super pissed about that hack job), bought some groceries, and set to cleaning!!

And here I am in my cleaning top-knot, pink cleaning gloves, and apron, ready to attack my nasty bathroom and kitchen!

FIGHTING!!

Dr. Fish

Like I said, Tara called and let us know she had quit her job. Her quitting was a little more dramatic than Kendra's and involved walking out in the middle of the day, an insanely scary director at work, and a groveling school owner. We had tried to meet up later on Friday night, but Tara ended up pow-wowing with her coworkers to try and figure out what to do about the crazy director.

I got more of the story from Tara on Sunday at church and from what I heard then, she plans on staying through April as a favor to the owner who has promised to pay for her flight home and give her her pension if she continues through the month and doesn't leave now. Awesome.

We decided to go do some fun things on Sunday to get our minds off of stuff. Tara had a great idea: Dr. Fish!

Never heard of Dr. Fish? Ah, well let me enlighten you to our fantabulous adventure.

We headed over to Gangnam which is where our whole Korea adventure started! The school had us in a hotel in this area so it was a little strange to go back to Gangnam and see it with new eyes. Fun.

Tara directed us to a building with a cute, non-assuming little cafe on the second floor.



Waiting for our order.



Hot chocolates and endless cookies and bread all around!



Mmm...



Tara enjoying the bread and jam. Yum!



What is this? Dr. Fish?



Well, for the price of a beverage and 2,000 extra won (about $1.75) you get a very special 15 minute pedicure.



You go up, the guy sprays your feet down, and then you stick your feet into a tank of FISH who then CHEW on your FEET. Okay, so they don't have teeth so they are really just sucking on your feet, but sure as heck felt STRANGE.





I first tried the tank with the big fish but couldn't keep my feet in. It was just too much. So I headed over to the little fish tank. Still strange. I kept twitching my feet and it would scare the fish so I never got quite the crowd that Kendra attracted. That was just fine with me.

I cannot tell you what a strange feeling it was to have these fish swimming all over our feet and nibbling all over. It tickles so much!!



Am I going again? Heck YES I am! This is a must see for the peoples who come visit me, if only so I get to watch them go through the same torture I did.

After the pedicure (and another foot bath with sanitizer and lotion) my feet felt like I had pumiced them really well. Quite nice. I'd rather use a pumice stone than fish, though. At least on a regular basis.

Although we had snacked on bread and hot chocolate, we were still hungry so Tara and her friend (who showed up a little later during our pedicure) directed us to a place that serves breakfast foods practically 24 hours a day! Now, I usually only eat two meals a day: lunch and dinner. I've never been much of a breakfast person and the fact that Western breakfast foods aren't a big item here, I haven't had pancakes or anything since I've come to Korea. We were really excited for breakfast.

The place was called Butterfingers Pancakes. I don't think this was a reference to the candy bar, though that would have been cool.



The waitress had a bit of difficulty. I think Tara's friend really confused her when she tried to do some switch around with the sides on her. Personally, I try not to get complicated. I am more of the point and hope strategist when it comes to ordering food.



Omelets!



Breakfast potatoes!!



The item I ordered first caught my attention with the name: "The Morning After." What!? Walk of shame breakfast? I was cracking up so I read the description: Chive waffle topped with two eggs over easy with caramelized onions and cherry tomatoes with bacon. It sounded delicious so, in spite of the interesting name (let's face it... maybe because of it) I ordered up a "Morning After" *snicker* and my first Dr. Pepper in 7 months. Oh, Dr. Pepper. How I miss you. :)



Um, it was DELICIOUS. No one mentioned the DILL PICKLE! So tastey. Think Dad will take me here when he visits this weekend? Maybe? Or should we stick to Korean food?

Perhaps the best part of the night was the taxi ride home. I know, right? How could a taxi ride beat Dr. Fish and breakfast with Dr. Pepper?

Ride a taxi with Tara and you will know. This girl is hilarious. She talked the whole ride with our taxi driver. She knows a little Korean and he knew a little English so she practiced on him. I can't really describe it. She knows the words for grandma and grandkids so she was telling him she was a grandma ans we were her grandkids. He was cracking up and kept telling her "Anee!" No! She also knew the word for bathroom. And the word for here. I won't go into that one. I hope we at least entertained him. He laughed enough and taught Tera to spell her name correctly in Hangul. I hope he went back to his "jib" in Anyang and told his wife about the crazy American girls.

As I got out of the cab, I had to throw my own 10 won in there. I leaned in and said, "Ahjushi, byaneo. Agashi, SOJU, SOJU SOJU!!" or, in English (basically) "Sir, I'm sorry. The miss, SOJU SOJU SOJU!!" Note: soju is the alcohol of choice in Korea. Tara yelled, "AnDE!!!" "Forbidden!" but I assured him, "Nay, nay. Yes, yes. It's true."

And that's how I ended my weekend with none of my work done for research and development, my lessons left un-prepared, and an apartment still insanely dirty while my dad is coming for a visit this weekend.

So what am I doing with my two days off this week? Oh, just another full weekend of touring with Kendra. Hopefully I'll get to clean my bathroom, do my laundry, do two weeks worth of R&D work, prepare next week's lessons, and, oh yeah, sleep sometime before Saturday when Dad gets here. Then I get to do it all over again! Yay!

Next weekend. Next weekend, I will rest. It shall be a restful, boring blog week after Dad leaves. In the meantime, I expect that I will have some good pictures and stories to tell about this upcoming weekend. Speaking of which, I should probably go to bed since I'm supposed to be in Insadong around the time I usually wake up. Loves!